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Exploring the Watershed Between More-Mover and Study

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Exploring the Watershed Between More-Mover and Study No. 171 – Vol. XIV – January 2008 Supplement EXPLORING THE WATERSHED BETWEEN MORE-MOVER AND STUDY BY WIELAND BRUCH EXPLORING THE WATERSHED BETWEEN MORE-MOVER AND STUDY WIELAND BRUCH How infinite is the empire of forms; how much remains to be exploited for centuries to come! Robert Schumann, 1854 There are many different ways of looking at the relationship between the study and the chess problem. Specialists hold that studies and problems – including more-movers, the sub-genre lying closest to the study – are fundamentally distinct, that they are practically incompatible, or at best serenely tolerate one another. My view, at least as regards study and more-mover, the pair we shall devote our attention to, is that there is a closer connection than appears at first sight. To me the plain fact is significant that throughout chess composition’s history we find top-class composers who have come to terms with both sub-genres without favouring one over the other. We need name only such outstanding masters of the past and present as J. Kling, J. Berger, L.I. Kubbel, V. Bron, E. Zepler, A. Chéron, V. Pachman, I. Krikheli and J. Rusinek. The reader is invited to take part in a modest preliminary ‘self-test’. The three diagrams A, B and C show either a WTM study to win, or a more-mover. The examples have been deliberately selected to be simple, calling for no electronic adjunct. Please take the plunge after a first glance at the diagram. You can change your mind afterwards, when you have looked at the composers’ own categories. So: can you, or can you not, at the drop of a hat distinguish between more-mover and study? The necessary details, including sources, will be found at this paper’s conclusion. The following reflections centre on the nail-biting question, how far the common features and relationships (covering both form and content) between orthodox more-mover and study – despite their genre-dependent differences – can be demonstrated. We shall cover the extent to which wealth of ideas of the one genre carry over into the other and bear fruit. Above all, prospects for the future will not be ignored. For this purpose it seems to me useful to run over, at least indica- tively, the most important lines of development starting from the earliest days of chess composi- tion and taking the tale up to the present. That is why we now delve into history. A B C XIIIIIIIIY Win? Or mate in n? XIIIIIIIIY Win? Or mate in n? XIIIIIIIIY Win? Or mate in n? 9-+-+-mk-+0 9rvl-+-+-+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9+-vL-+P+-0 9+-zp-+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 9-zp-+-mK-+0 9p+p+-+-+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9+n+-+-+-0 9+-zp-+-+-0 9+-+-tR-+-0 9-+-sn-+-+0 9-mkP+-zp-+0 9-+-+-mK-mk0 9+-+-+-+-0 9+P+-+-zp-0 9+-+N+-+-0 9-+-+-+-+0 9PmK-+-+-+0 9-+-+-zp-+0 9+-+-+-+-0 9tR-+-+-vL-0 9+-+-+-+-0 f6f8 0016.11 3/4 b2b4 0440.36 6/9 f4h4 0101.01 3/2 – 54 – Wieland Bruch : Exploring the watershed between more-mover and study I. – Common Roots and Developments from the 9th/10th Centuries to the Start of the 20th Century We know that chess composition is as old as chess itself. Already in the oldest arabic manu- scripts that have come down to us we find the mansuba from the 9th/10th century, allowing us to conclude without hesitation that here we are dealing with purposely constructed composed posi- tions even if spectacularly based on counterfeit game endings. Apart from the then customary stip- ulation ‘White (or Black) moves and wins’ such compositions betray for the most part no features of genuine endgame studies as understood today. On the other hand they can certainly be seen as the earliest fore-runners of the modern chess problem. Thus in B.1 there is the culminating four- knights model checkmate, necessarily reached after consecutive checks forced by impending in- stant mate to the white king: 1.Rh7+! Kg8 2.Sf6+ Kf8 3.e7+ Sxe7 4.Rf7+ Sxf7 5.Se6 mate. B.2 is a modernised version of a notable early miniature updated with bishops replacing the original fers-pair on a6 and c5, and correct only as a four-mover though the original stipulation was ‘White to move and win’(1): 1.Rb8+ Ka7 2.Ra8+! Kxa8 3.Fb7+ Ka7 4.Fb6 mate. Since at the time the fers was limited in movement to one square in each diagonal direction the sacrifice of the rook, by far the most powerful piece, must have made a deep impression. The version B.2 here preserves the essentials: 1.Rb8+! Ka7 2.Ra8+ Kxa8 3.Bb7+ Ka7 4.Bb6 mate. Leaping ahead a good thousand years allows us an interesting comparison with the relatively re- cent B.3 due to the great Russian studies specialist: 1.Ra8+! Kb6 2.Ra6+ Kxa6 3.c8S! (zugzwang) S~ 4.Sc5 mate. Wherein, precisely, lies the advance? The theme of elimination of harmful white force by diversionary sacrifice is thus over a thousand years old and was already set simply as a miniature. However, technique and form are refined to the nth degree: with just six chessmen and an unconstrained bK we see above all the quiet third move with underpromotion to knight, and zugzwang – the artistic stamp of perfection. B.1 Arabian B.2 al-Adli B.3 Ernest Pogosyants XIIIIIIIIYca. 900 XIIIIIIIIYca. 840 (version) XIIIIIIIIYspecial prize 64 1973 9-+-sn-+-mk0 9k+-+-+-+0 9-+R+-+-+0 9+-tR-+-+-0 9+RmK-+-+-0 9+nzP-+-+-0 9-+n+P+-+0 9L+-+-+-+0 9k+-+N+-+0 9+-+N+-sN-0 9vL-+-+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 9-+-+-+-+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9K+-+-+-+0 9+p+-+-+-0 9+n+-+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 9-+r+-+r+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9mK-+-+-+-0 9tr-+-+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 a1h8 0708.11 5/6 Win c7a8 0423.00 4/3 4# a4a6 0104.10 4/2 4# Now back to the Middle Ages, during which significant advances in chess composition are barely perceptible. Europe’s contributions were limited to endless repetitions and inflections of the old arabian mansubat, and to their degeneration into opportunities for wagers. For the game the world had to wait for the regeneration brought about by the transformation of the two short-haul pieces into the long-striding queen and bishop of today, and the emergence of the modern rules governing play. This revolution took place at the end of the 15th century and was decisive. Unsus- pected combinative possibilities opened up, as it were at one bound, to make the pastime consider- (1) From M. VELIMIROVIĆ and M. KOVAĆEVIĆs 2345 Chess Problems, Belgrade, 1997. – 55 – Wieland Bruch : Exploring the watershed between more-mover and study ably more enjoyable and more attractive. But it was a long, long time before this potential spilled over into the composing arena. It is true that the state interpreter Philip Stamma, of Syrian extrac- tion but latterly (in the first half of the 18th century) residing in Paris and London, cleverly adapted the enormous new powers of the pieces. However, what he published in Paris in 1737 was still rec- ognisably in the style of the old arabian mansuba. The whole construction of B.4, for example, hangs on presenting White with no choice but violence in face of the dire menace to his own king. This is achieved by uninterrupted checking to bring about checkmate to the other side. We do nev- ertheless see the potential of the queen, now the most powerful piece, impressively demonstrated: 1.Qd8+ Ka7 2.Sb5+ Ka6 3.Sxc7+ Ka7 4.Sc8+ Bxc8 5.Sb5+ Kb7 6.Qc7+ Ka6 7.Qxc8+ Kxb5 8.Qc4 mate. B.4 Philip Stamma B.5 Philip Stamma B.6 Ercole del Rio Traité sur le jeu des Échecs Traité sur le jeu des Échecs Sopra il giuoco degli Scacchi XIIIIIIIIY1737 XIIIIIIIIY1737 XIIIIIIIIY1750 9-mk-+-+-+0 9-+-+-mk-+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9+lzpQsN-+-0 9+-+-+-+K0 9+-+-+-+-0 9-zp-+-+-+0 9-+-+-sNP+0 9-+-zp-+-+0 9zp-+-+-+-0 9+-+-sn-zP-0 9+-+-zp-+L0 9-+-+-+p+0 9-+p+-+-+0 9-+-+P+-+0 9+-sNP+n+-0 9+-+l+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 9-+-+-zPK+0 9-+-+-+-+0 9-+-+K+kzp0 9+-+-wq-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 9+-+-+-+-0 g2b8 4035.24 6/8 Win h7f8 0034.21 4/4 Draw e2g2 0010.13 3/4 Win This win position by the most famous of the old-time creators betrays in retrospect how far the 900-year development of the chess problem had and had not come in that time. Stamma’s mansub- at were received with acclamation as unsurpassable masterpieces. Not even in their dreams could those contemporary commentators have imagined the stormy development of the next century!(2) But what about the study during the same period? From our vantage-point we can say ‘no better at all!’. Naturally, here and there we find an economical position with endgame characteristics and a pretty conclusion. The earliest endings with material such as rook versus knight and the famous knight-mate in the corner against king and pawn crop up already in the 12th and 13th centuries and are endlessly elaborated. But here we restrict our focus to the genuine endgame study despite the fact that the frontier with the didactic endgame, as A. Chéron was later to define it(3), has never been easy to establish. Two examples will reflect the climate prevalent at the time of Stamma. The stalemate study B.5 is little more than a very successful epigram: 1.Sd7+ Sxd7 2.Kh8 Bxg6 stale- mate.
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